Saturday, October 13, 2012

We choose our own paths in this life.

A few years ago at a pistol range I started gabbing with an off-duty cop that had pistol qualifications coming up and decided that maybe practicing might be a good idea.

We were gabbing about some high profile case that was on the news and I was interested not so much in the trial, but how the thug in question actually got caught. I wanted to know what mistake he had made to get nailed because it looked pretty mych like the prosecution had all his ducks lined up in a row.

The policeman told me he had been watching the case and explained in detail to me how the accused had left a trail. He also told me what he could have done to escape detection and how if he hadn't done such and such and made such and such a mistake he would have gotten clean away.

I grinned and told the cop he had a pretty good mind for this sort of thing and told him he'd likely make a pretty good criminal if he had decided to take that bent.

He looked at me a little confused and I explained to him that it takes a criminal mind to catch one and that he seemed to have a pretty good one.

The look of confusion subsided and turned into a thoughtful look.He said to me, "I never looked at it that way. I guess it's just a matter of which path we choose."

We do choose our paths in life and while making a huge pile of money was not on my list of priorities, I simply have not gotten rich. I suppose if I wanted to I surely could have. I chose a different path. Many of us have.

Others have made choices that have gotten themselves rich, others have chosen to be poor, and the most of us have chosen a path that they are comfortable getting by with.

It's true for all of us. We generally turn out the way we do because of the choices we make along the way.

In other unrelated crap, my shipmate has told me that Autumn has been cancelled due to lack of interest. We are going to go straight into winter. He's generally right.